Hobart College lacrosse players accused in N.J. man's overdose death get community service

Oscar Durand/For The Star-LedgerThe off-campus house at 9 Cortland St. in Geneva, N.Y., where Hobart College sophomore Warren Kimber IV was found dead in January 2009. Ontario County officials said that toxicology tests determined that Kimber died from an alcohol and drug overdose.

CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. -- Facing up to a year in prison, two former students at a college in upstate New York were instead sentenced to community service today for providing alcohol at an off-campus party where a classmate from New Jersey died.

Summit resident Warren Kimber IV, 20, who had been a sophomore at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region, drank a staggering amount of alcohol in the hours before his death on Jan. 31, an autopsy found.

Kimber's blood alcohol level was .29 percent, more than 31/2 times the legal limit to drive. He also had the painkiller oxycodone in his system. It was the combination of drugs and alcohol that killed him, a medical examiner ruled.

Bradley Hester, 22, of Cumberland, R.I., and Matthew Smalley, 23, of Woodbridge, Va., pleaded guilty in May to a misdemeanor charge of providing alcohol to a person under 21. All three students were members of the varsity lacrosse team.

Warren Kimber, in an undated photo from the Pingry School yearbook.

Today, a judge in Geneva City, N.Y., ordered Hester and Smalley to spend 50 hours educating children about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. They also must undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation and follow any recommendations issued after the assessment.

Kimber's parents previously declined to comment on their son's death, and a message left at their home this evening was not returned. Hester and Smalley, who were seniors at the school, lived in the off-campus house where the party was held. Kimber, a graduate of the Pingry School in Martinsville, lived nearby.

A Hobart and William Smith spokeswoman, Mary LeClair, declined to say tonight whether the pair had been disciplined. Hester and Smalley had been due to graduate in May.

"Hobart and William Smith Colleges responded to the matter following administrative and community standards," LeClair said in a statement. "In keeping with these standards, the colleges do not respond to inquiries concerning individual student matters."

In a statement to police, Smalley said several people that night noticed Kimber seemed "under the weather."

"He seemed incoherent, so we put him to bed in my room," Smalley told investigators, according to the police report. "We could tell he had too much to drink and it was time for him to lay down."

Later, when Smalley went to bed, he moved Kimber to a couch in his room. By morning, he was dead. Investigators were unable to determine where Kimber obtained the oxycodone.